Reading your response
@Penguin I think I should have made clear, that I am concerned about the efficiency of CVNs in naval warfare. Carriers are definitely very flexible but that's not what I wanted to ask you about to be honest.
This advantage still applies even with the advent of long range cruise missiles (which are not a new phenomenon)
Well, aircraft carriers have been around since the 1920s, and historically the advantage of carriers was that their aircraft had greater range than the big guns on battleships.
Survivability:
- Due to size, design and eleborate damage/fire control practises, the carrier is still one of the most difficult vessels to put out of action permamently. It has enormous potential to abosorb damage, relative to smaller naval units. It's ability to move around ads to that, as it is not an easy asset to locate and keep track of without very significant investments in surveillance assets of various kinds.
Well, a large number of heavily armed destroyers like the Arleigh Burkes have high survivability in terms of active defence systems like missiles and CIWS. Realistically, if you have allowed your carrier to take physical damage, you have already failed to prevent the enemy from breaking down your numerous ranged defences like fighter aircraft and escorts.
Flexibility:
- Relative to cruise-missile armed submarines and destroyers, the carrier's air combat group can deliver a far wider range or munitions and ordnance, tailored to the specific targets (there are currently e.g. no ARM versions of cruise missiles, which home on radar emissions, for SEAD)
- Packages of aircraft can be put together tailored to defeat specific defences, in combination with ship- and sub-launched cruisemissiles and munitions from long range aviation (B52, B1B, B2) and tanker/control/EW assets (EC/RC-130, EC/RC-135, EV-22, E2, E3 etc)
Granted. Carriers are very flexible, allowing them to partake in wide offensives on enemy states. But what about naval warfare? In such a case, cruise missiles can do the job.
Cost effectiveness:
- One large carrier is more cost-effective than 2 or 3 smaller ones with the same cumulative airgroup size: fewer personnel, less fuel consumption etc. Moreover, fewer escorts are needed. Likewise, it may well be that the number of SSN and DDG required to offer equivalent firepower to that of a carrier is such that the carrier option is more cost-effective, even if its escorts and logistical train are included in the equation.
Yes, but I am talking about a large number of DDGs to 1 CVN not 3 small CVNs to 1 large CVN.
Staying power:
- A carrier has a large stock of aviation fuel and ordnance, which it can also have replenished while at sea. By comparision, once a sub or destroyer expends its cruisemissile load it has to return to port to reload, which means another boat or ship will have to take up its place. Since port is not necessarily nearby, additional boats/vessels are needed (i.e. ships/boats in transit to/from the combat zone). So, unless you have a substantial numbers of DDGs or SSNs to spare, the carrier clearly has some advantages here.
Yes, but this isn't this less relevant in ship-to-ship combat? After all, if you can afford 10 DDGs to 1 CVN, you have a lot of ordinance. Furthermore, naval battles aren't typically as long as what America uses its carriers for (anti-ground ops mostly) and there are a far more smaller number of combatants. It is conceivable that 1 DDG would have enough armament to destroy another DDG several times over (ceteris paribas). Same for 10 DDGs vs 10 DDGs, etc.
really strange
